1983 Audi quattro-Restoring the Coilovers

Well, sometimes decisions have a way of making themselves. It came to my attention that the coilovers and hubs from the 4K were actually available as the original sale fell through. And being frugal to the point of stupidity, and for the right price, I figured I could make at least pieces of it work. They’ve been neglected and I knew going in that one of the front Konis was blown with a lot of shaft play. In the end, it will either be a killer deal or a good learning experience. It also is using second-hand items which I prefer in this disposable world we now live in. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.

Yes, they are in need of a little help.

It’s nice to have options when you’re building stuff.

The coilovers were built from a 4Kq Ground Control kit with Eibach springs (2x GC200.64.77 – these are a metric spec spring with specs near 8”L; 2.5”ID; 450lb/in and 2x 0800.250.0500 – these are a standard spring with specs of 8”L; 2.5”ID; 500lb/in). These are stiffer than I wanted, but beggars can’t be choosers sometimes. I am unclear as to why the one pair is metric but they were the ones on the rear and are a bit larger diameter. This is possibly a choice to clear the larger top cap on the rear strut housings.

One problem is that I want a bit stiffer in the rear to help with the understeer, but this wouldn’t work out that way. I’m hoping to trade the 500’s for some 400’s and then keep the original 450’s in the rear. I think that would be the ideal first choice.

They also came with adjustable Koni Yellows-small diameter top adjust units for the front and the remove-to-adjust large diameter ones for the rears.

The strut housings were 2-piece fronts with 82mm bearing housings and the rears were the 1-piece units. I had planned on 2-piece, so I figured I was halfway there already with this setup. There was also a full set of 5 lug hubs and axles that I could make use of…or at least pieces here and there.

I’m still trying to get my head around the whole tranny/axle/hub/cv/diff size matching game and deciding what the best route is as far as an easily serviceable setup with good parts availability.

In the meantime, I started disassembling and cleaning all of the parts up.
I needed to modify my tool to get a socket in to hold the top of the Koni shaft on the top-adjust damper.

Clearance for the socket.

Sometimes the top caps are a bit of a pain to get off. Some of these were pretty rusty and the fronts had become one with the sleeves as well.

There was little to no clearance on the top caps and they corroded together a bit. It looked they had been ground down to fit the sleeve.

Unfortunately, the sleeves didn’t survive the operation.

That’s too bad as I thought the fronts could be fully usable, but will need to get some sleeves for them. Let’s see what other things didn’t make it.

Three good dampers.

As mentioned before, one of the Konis just wasn’t working quite right. There was a lot of play and…oh, what’s this?…

Hmmm…what happened to the outer tube? Oh there it is.

Interesting….well let’s try and pull that out of there.

So, the question…Is this thing rebuildable? :dur:

I cleaned up the springs a bit, but there is a bit of surface rust and missing paint.

The spring perches cleaned up pretty well. A bit of corrosion on the uppers in areas where the springs were rusting.

And then there were a set of bump stops and two white plastic washers.

One question for the experts, although I think it is going to come down to a matter of personal preference…This is pertaining to the Koni yellows. I’ve seen people switch to the big bore strut housings to allow running a larger diameter damper. But if using what is in the rear, it does not have the top adjuster. So you would lose that.

Then others have actually set it up to run the small diameter dampers with the top adjust on all four corners. So it seems the trade-off is easier adjustability versus a larger damper. Is there a way to get the best of both worlds with Konis? At this point, I think I’ll just buy 1 top adjust small diameter for the front to fill out the set again and call it done for Phase 1.

Now I’ve got to figure out what to put together for the axles/hubs and rear diff for the 01E to be happy. I’ve got early urq axles and hubs…the axles and 5 lug hubs from the 4kq (from what I don’t know yet). A 4kq driveshaft…01E mounts…getting there…

Good thing I know a couple local guys with all the answers…